The Girl From the River
by Vivstar
Summary: Set after series finale. Spoilers. T for language. Caliban rescues a strange, injured girl, Emily(from AU), who washes up on the bank of the Thames. They talk and befriend each other, with Caliban even getting a glimpse of what his fate could have once been. Later, Caliban must face an enemy he thought dead. Emily must decide if one friendship could ever be worth more than another.
1. Chapter 1

_Penny Dreadful_ fanfiction.

Disclaimer: I do not own the TV show _Penny Dreadful_ or any of the characters.

Caliban/John Clare/Creature meets an O.C. of mine. She's from an A.U., in another, original, story I've written. Told from Caliban's point of view.

Genre: Friendship/hurt/comfort. Set sometime after the series finale.

Chapter One

It was raining, he realized. _Again_. Caliban never did like the rain, though he wasn't sure why. Perhaps it had to do with how he was brought to life during such a storm, and, subsequently, abandoned.

That, and how he always seemed to be forced out into it, broken-hearted and alone.

Except, this time, it was different. For once, he was just another face in the crowd. No one stared at him, because they, including himself, were staring at the river.

Or, rather, what had crashed into it from the sky.

A great, burning, metal thing it was. When it had hit the water, the impact was so great that the displaced water went almost halfway up the streets of the immediate area perpendicular to the river. Fortunately for those who lived in that area, though, it quickly receded back to the river.

It sank too quickly to be identified-at least by Caliban. Even as it sank beneath the water and was swept away, downriver, it sent steam and smoke upward into the sky. Only once completely underwater for a good few minutes did the smoke and steam cease to appear.

The main spectacle over, most of the crowd soon dispersed, assuming any rescue attempt or investigation would be taken care of by others. Just as he, too, started to turn away, subtle movement on the near side of the river caught his eye. He paused, squinting, trying to see what it was.

Not _what_ , he realized. _Who_.

At first, he'd thought it was just someone who had been knocked over by the sudden wave of water. But, upon closer inspection, he realized that was not the case. What he saw was a person, yes. Someone knocked over by the water simply due to chance? Not so.

Someone who had just been knocked over would not have reddened skin, possibly caused by the rapidly heated (perhaps scalding, even) water around the strange object. That, and the clothing was a far cry different than any he'd ever seen before-even when he'd worked at the theatre, there had been no costumes that looked like what this person wore. Due to this, it took him a moment to realize that the person struggling to get up was, in fact, a young woman.

Looking around, he saw that no one had come to her aid. Perhaps no one else had noticed her, since all eyes had been on the object that had hit the water, as well as the subsequent mess it had created. No one had thought that there could have been a person inside the thing at one point, let alone gotten out and swum away.

The way she tried to claw her way up the slippery, stony bank, her skin red and painful-looking, brought his own memories crashing back to him. Memories of his own rebirth at the hands of Victor Frankenstein. The feelings of physical pain, as well as fear, panic, confusion, and loneliness… was that what the person before him might be feeling now?

Without realizing it, he moved closer to the strange woman. He found himself standing just at the top of the riverbank, almost directly above her prone form. Having closed most of the distance between them, he could hear her cry for help every couple of minutes or so. Some were little more than that-cries of pain. Others contained words. "Help," being the most prominent among them, obviously.

Once again, more memories were stirred up in his mind. The sound of his own wails of desperation in his ears. His ears, and no others. How alone he had been when Victor, his creator, had abandoned him.

Studying her more closely, he saw the reason she was unable to get up. Her left leg was clearly broken below the knee, and positioned at a most unnatural angle. How she had managed to swim while having such a badly broken bone was beyond him. Every move she made must have caused her great pain.

She remained unaware of his presence-he had long ago learned how to be stealthy. A few moments later, though, her strength failed her, and she stopped trying to move forward. Instead, with a groan, she rolled over onto her side, lying still and quiet, save for a shaking motion that may have been shivering. Or crying. Or both.

He'd been cold that night of his rebirth, too.

He realized that he saw, in this girl, a reflection of himself. And, in himself, he saw the choice he had to make: either be like Victor, and run off, or stay and help this poor person before him.

As he made his decision, he wished that he could say that it was purely out of compassion that he would help. In truth, though, a large part of why he did it was to prove how he was nothing like Victor Frankenstein. However, he liked to think that, maybe, an even larger part of the decision was made up of compassion and his ability to relate to the strange girl below him than his pride was.

Gingerly, he slid off the edge of the walkway, landing on the rocky bank of the river, the smaller pebbles and dirt crunching under his boots.

Moving toward the girl, he saw that she had grown more still, though her body still shuddered every few moments.

"Miss?" he called out gingerly, voice quiet for fear of startling her. "Miss?"

With one hand, he, after a minute of deliberation, reached out his hand and, ever so gently, nudged her shoulder.

His efforts did not go unrewarded. She turned her head and looked up at him, her blue eyes searching for his own yellow ones.

"Don't be scared," he told her quickly, remembering his deformity suddenly. With hardly a thought, he reached up with one hand and pulled his collar up as high as it could go to cover the right side of his face. "I-I'm here to help."

She nodded, but did not speak.

Caliban tried to think of what to say next, let alone _do_. He had no place to take her, other than the clinic where he himself slept at night.

"What's your name?" he asked. He had many other questions for her, but figured that most of them would have to wait.

"Emily," she answered quietly.

"Do you think you can stand up on your unbroken leg, Emily? There is a place not far from here, where I live. It's dirty and crowded, but there's food there, and nuns who could help straighten and bind up your leg. Maybe get some cool water for your burns, even."

This time, however, she shook her head.

"Don't think so," she answered, her voice even more quiet. But her movement, as if she were shifting her weight to begin another attempt, told Caliban that she was more than willing to try if needed, despite obvious injuries and exhaustion.

Caliban quickly shook his head, not wanting her to risk further injury to herself.

"I saw you trying to move while you called out for help," he agreed, sensing that this woman did not want to appear weaker than she was. "I can carry you, if you would allow me. Assuming you'd like to go to the shelter, that is."

She nodded, which he interpreted as an affirmative answer to both options.

Before he lost his nerve, he extended his arms out and lifted her up off the cold ground, so she was about level with his chest. He could not help but think that this was the way a groom would carry his bride across the threshold to their new home.

He should have realized that her burns would not be limited to places on her skin that he could see. But the thought occurred to him too late.

"Ah!" Emily cried out, twisting in his hold at the sudden new pain. Caliban was quick to clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle her, lest any passerby think he was trying to kidnap the woman.

Her crying out stopped soon, though, as she adjusted herself to where the pressure from laying in his arms landed on less painful areas. After that, she went limp. He would have thought her unconscious if hadn't been able to see her face at the time. She was awake, but barely. Her eyes were bloodshot, and, from the way she kept widening them, she was struggling to stay awake.

"So…tired," she sighed, and he could feel her warm breath on his throat. "But can't go to sleep."

She seemed to be talking more to herself than to him.

"Yes, you can, Miss," he said without thinking, his voice gentle but insistent. He felt a strange sense of déjà vu, then, as if he'd said something like that to another woman, once. One who was also hurting. But he could not remember having ever said such a thing to anyone. Strange.

At the moment, though, he had more pressing things to focus on.

Despite her burns, she was shivering. Instinct told him that it was not just from the rain.

Holding her more tightly against himself, so as to help keep her from unnecessary pain due to jostling, he hurried off towards the shelter, both of them soaking from the rain.

No one paid the two any heed as the cold, misty, rain became a raging storm overhead.

So, here goes nothing. Please review. Tell me what you think. Did I keep Caliban/John Clare in character well enough?

More will be revealed about who Emily is as the story goes on.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Penny Dreadful or any of the characters.

Chapter Two

Caliban could tell that Emily was out cold as he carefully laid her down on the mattress he had at the clinic. Whether she was unconscious, fainted, or simply deeply asleep, he could not be sure. He had called out her name and shaken her, wanting to let her know where they were.

When she did not respond, he felt her forehead. She was warm-too warm. But was the warmth due to a fever, or her burns?

Not wanting to linger in indecision (he had learned from his theatre days that indecision was what had nearly driven Shakespeare's character, Hamlet, mad), he went and found the nun on duty.

He quickly told the nun about Emily and her injuries. The nun (he believed her name to be Lisa, but had no time to ask) kindly agreed to gather what supplies she had, as well as ask a few of her sisters to come and help.

"Hurry," Caliban urged her as she turned and walked briskly towards another nun farther away. He soon turned and did the same. Once by Emily's side again, he knelt by her head. Quickly, and despite how she was unconscious, he spoke to her.

"Miss Emily," he whispered. "Miss Emily, if you can hear me, I want you to know that some others are coming to help you. We're going to fix your leg, which I reckon is going to hurt quite a lot. But once it's all set, it should feel better. Then, the nuns are going to help the burns get better-put cool water on them and cover them up. But the nun I talked to said that I should not help with that part-it would be improper for me to see the parts of your body that they must check. But I won't be far, I promise. Just in case you need me."

If Emily could hear him, she did not show it. She remained still, save for breathing and the occasional shiver.

"And," Caliban added, "I realized I forgot to introduce myself. My name is…well, it seems I have a few. Some call me "monster," or "demon." To others, I am "John Clare," just like the poet. And to, well, at least one person or two, I am "Caliban.""

"You can call me Caliban," he decided. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Emily."

Almost as an afterthought, he reached out and touched her hand gently with his own.

Hearing footsteps- the nuns were fast approaching- he turned his head towards them.

It was then that he felt Emily's hand move. Turning his face back to her, he saw that, not only had her hand moved in response to his touch, her fingers stretching out and around his own, but that she had also turned her head towards him, as if seeking him- seeking the source of the touch.

Her eyes were still closed, but her face was scrunched up, as if in confusion. Or pain. Perhaps both. He wanted to soothe her, somehow.

"Don't be scared, Miss," he whispered, still not sure if she could hear him, but knew that she had somehow felt his touch. "We're going to help you get better. I promise. I won't leave you-not really. I mean, the nuns may shoo me away at one point, but, like I said before, I won't be far. You are not alone."

Again, something tugged at his mind. Just like at the river. A memory just out of reach. Perhaps, if his wife ever allowed him to come back, he could ask her about his previous life. Perhaps one of his professions was involved in helping people?

He remembered, suddenly, what Vanessa had told him not long before she had died. Of how he had been very kind to her at someplace called the "Banning Clinic." He had helped her, apparently. She had claimed that he had worked there. But as what? Surely not as a doctor?

Caliban did not know much about the place, save for the name. But he was determined to look into it. Anything regarding the recovery of memories of his life was worth considering. Especially when those memories included Vanessa Ives, whom he missed dearly.

But not that night. That night, he would stay close to Emily. Another young woman who needed his help.

"Sir? Is she unconscious?"

The voice of Sister Lisa brought him out of his thoughts. He hesitated.

"More or less," he conceded. "Though, I am not sure."

"Better for her, then, if she is. We need to fix the leg, first," another nun chimed in, her voice deeper than Lisa's. She was older, too, about middle-aged, and her manner all business.

Caliban could only hope that Emily would not feel what they had to do.

After feeling up the general area of the break (which by then had swollen up so much that it seemed almost impossible, at least to Caliban, to determine where the bone was broken, precisely), it was determined that they needed to straighten her leg, even pull it a little to help align the broken parts again.

As the nuns worked on her, all Caliban could do was sit beside her, still holding her hand in his. Except for the brief time she woke up when they tried to straighten her leg.

Her eyes popped open, and she screamed like an angry banshee.

"Get off!" she cried, struggling against the holds of the nuns as well as his own. "Stop! What the hell are you doing? Where am I? Who are you?"

Before any of them could respond, Emily let out a long string of words that, even if Caliban did not understand every word's meaning, did understand that they were not the type to be repeated in public.

"Such unladylike language!" one of the nuns exclaimed.

If Emily had even heard the woman, she did not care as she tried to sit upright, fighting against their holds.

"Emily," Caliban called out her name. "Emily!" he repeated more firmly, his hands on her shoulders, then, trying to keep her still.

At hearing her name again, she turned her head to see him. Recognition passed over her features, lessening her confusion.

"These women are trying to fix your leg. Please, calm down. The sooner you let them, the sooner the pain goes away," he pleaded with her while the nuns remained all but frozen in place.

"You…" Emily trailed off somewhat dreamily, voice much quieter, reaching out with one hand, her pointer-finger out, towards his face. "You brought me here. From the river."

"Yes," Caliban agreed, glad she recognized him.

At his confirmation, she allowed herself to relax somewhat.

"Were you…talking to me, earlier? You said you had the name…" she squinted, trying to remember. "Caliban? Was that it?"

Now he was the one surprised.

"You heard me?" he asked, disbelieving.

"Sort of... It was like you were talking from far away, and all I got were echoes. You said- Aah!"

The nuns then took the opportunity of her distraction to move the leg into the proper position in one quick move.

Meanwhile, Caliban could not help the thought which crossed his mind, that he vaguely wished he was the one hearing only echoes as she let out a sudden shriek of pain right in his ear.

"Ow! Owowow," Emily yelped, though she seemed to be trying to keep much more quiet and still, so that the nuns could work. "Jesus Christ!"

He still held her hand, though, while keeping the other on her shoulder.

"They're almost done," he assured her, trying not to glare at the head nun who was feeling the area around the break again to assure that it was aligned properly. He knew she was just trying to do her job, after all.

As soon as the nun let go of her leg, Emily quieted.

"The pain is less," she stated, looking across her body at her leg. "Thank you all for helping me. I'm sorry that I used such foul language. It was wrong, and unkind."

Her voice was quiet, and soft. She looked around at the group of nuns, seeking a response.

Caliban could tell her words were sincere, and, apparently, so could the nuns.

"All is forgiven," the older nun replied after exchanging a look with her sisters. "Heaven knows that we are all guilty sometimes of using such language in moments of pain or fear."

The nun smiled kindly.

"Now that your leg is back in its proper place, we can splint it and tend to your burns. Where would you say that they are the worst?"

Emily appeared thoughtful for a minute, looking across her body, shifting slightly, feeling where the pain was.

"My upper legs, my hands, and my face. Though, my chest stings, too. Just here," she pointed to her mid-torso area, just beneath her...

Oh.

 _Oh._ Caliban realized, turning away from her as the nuns gathered around her, his face hot with embarrassment.

"Aye," a nun noticed his movement. "Yes, you indeed best be lookin' away, sir," she told him sternly.

Caliban scrambled to his feet.

"I was just going…" he trailed off, unsure of where to go. It was still pouring outside.

The look on the nuns' face softened when she realized his predicament.

"Why not go to your own little section and rest," she gestured to the rest of the building in general. The woman had seen him in the shelter before. "We'll come get you when we're all done."

"Yes," he agreed. "Thank you."

He cast a glance back at Emily, who had noticed his departure from her side.

"Caliban?" she called. "You… you'll be back, right?"

"Yes, of course," he assured her. "I promise I will."

From the corner of his eye, he saw her smile, slightly.

"Okay," she relented.

He nodded, and began to make his way down the row of columns toward the other section of the shelter.

"Oh," Emily's voice reached his ears, slowing his steps. "And Caliban? It's nice to meet you, too."

For the first time that night, Caliban smiled sincerely.

And so ends chapter two. I'm terribly sorry for the long delay in updating. I hate waiting for my favorite stories to update, too. I hope this chapter will make up for it. And, please, as always, leave me a review. It doesn't have to be long. Even just a "good job" or something is more likely to make me update again sooner than if there were no reviews.

Happy new year, by the way!


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own _Penny Dreadful_ or any of the characters. Nor do I own any of the poetry quoted in this chapter.

This chapter is told from Emily's point of view.

Chapter Three

Emily tried to sleep that night. She really, really did. But, after spending so much time in and out of consciousness, she found herself reluctant to fall asleep. While unconscious, she had had strange dreams. Some were bad, others made no sense, and some were merely echoes of what was going on around her.

The real trouble was, though, that she was having a harder and harder time telling the dreams from reality. This frightened her. She kept opening her eyes, expecting to be one place, only to find herself somewhere totally unfamiliar. It was disorienting as well as disheartening to the young woman.

Besides the dreams and disorientation, she was in pain. Her leg ached badly. She had not dared to look at it since the nuns had splinted and bound her leg. Her body also couldn't decide what temperature it needed to be. Sometimes, she felt as though she had a fever, and wanted to kick the covers off. But then, a moment later, she'd feel cold despite the covers, as if she'd been dropped into the river again. Either way, the sweating didn't stop.

Her head hurt as well, and she had that nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she had forgotten something. Something important… But what? Could she have hit her head hard enough to cause amnesia? She couldn't remember hitting her head, but, then again, a lot of her recent memories were fuzzy. Her long-term memory, however, was just fine.

She knew who she was. She was Emily Birch. She was from Abita Springs, Louisiana, in the United States. She was 22. She lived with her parents and her younger brother, Bradly, who was 16. They had a pet: an orange and stripped tabby cat named Alex.

She also had a very, very dear friend by the same name. _Alex._ He was really important to her, though she couldn't remember how she knew him, for now.

As for how she'd ended up…wherever she was, all she remembered was the knowledge of an impending crash from high up in the sky. Had she been in a plane?

No, a ship. _A space ship?_ she wondered. She groaned softly, unable to make sense of any of it, and shook her head to re-direct her thoughts.

That same nagging feeling kept pulling at her about the cat, especially, as well as her friend, Alex. Why? Emily had no clue. She could only hope that time would bring her memories back.

Her only comfort throughout the night was Caliban, who sat dozing on and off on the floor next to the bed.

While she hadn't known him that long, his kind nature and actions had won her trust. He had saved her life, after all. And then, he'd stuck around to help. So, the least she could do, she figured, was trust him.

She realized then that she didn't know where she was. She knew she was at a shelter known as the "Banning Clinic," but she didn't know where the clinic was. What city was she in? What country? Thinking back, she remembered that all the people she'd met, from Caliban to the nuns, all spoke with an accent. Could she be somewhere in England, or somewhere else in Europe?

Since she didn't know, she resolved to ask Caliban in the morning. Assuming she was still alive then, anyway.

Something else was off, too. Despite her injuries, no one had even said anything about going to an emergency room, or that she needed an x-ray of her leg, or other medical treatment. Why?

Maybe she wasn't in Europe, but in some other country, one without much access to medical care. A third world country? Perhaps she'd crashed into the middle of a group of people such as "Doctors Without Borders," or other humanitarian relief workers.

She would ask Caliban in the morning. Apparently, she'd be asking him a number of things.

She lay still for a long time, trying to relax and, if not sleep, then to just let her body rest. It was so quiet. During this time of silence, however, Emily heard Caliban mumble in his sleep. From what she could see of his face from her current angle was creased and furrowed.

 _A bad dream?_ She wondered. She could relate.

"Ives…" Emily couldn't help but hear the words coming from Caliban. "Please get better… _No_. Miss Ives! Vanessa…"

Caliban sounded so anguished that Emily, despite the physical pain it caused her, pushed herself upright and reached for him. She shook his shoulder gently.

With a cry, Caliban jolted awake. He jumped away from her touch with surprising speed. Still crouched on the floor, he looked around wildly, as if disoriented and trying to figure out if there was something threatening him or not.

 _Poor guy_ , Emily thought. Who knows what kind of hell he'd been through in his life?

"It's okay, Caliban!" she rushed to reassure him. "It's me-Emily. You're alright. You were having a bad dream, so I tried to wake you up to get you out of it. I didn't mean to scare you."

As the last of his nightmare dissolved from his mind's eye, he looked at her.

"Miss Emily?" he spoke softly, as if unsure.

"Yes, Caliban?" she responded, watching as he got to his feet from where he'd been crouched on the floor.

"Thank you for waking me. You were right. It was a nightmare," he stated, sitting down on the very edge of the foot of the bed.

"Did _I_ wake _you_?" he asked a moment later.

Emily shook her head. "I was already awake. Been having trouble sleeping."

She wanted to ask who Miss Ives was, but decided against it, not wanting to remind him of his nightmare. So, she asked something else entirely.

"I realized that I don't know where I am," she told him, easing herself down onto one elbow as opposed to sitting fully upright. "And I figured it would be a good thing to know. Where are we? What city is this?"

Caliban blinked in surprise, but answered without any kind of mockery in his tone. Emily was very grateful for that.

"We are in London, Miss Emily. Where were you before the…" he struggled to find the right word for what had happened at the river. "Before the accident? How ever did you wind up in such a strange contraption?"

Emily saw him give a hint of a smile, as evidenced by how one corner of Caliban's mouth quirked upwards. She smiled back wryly.

"I think I was in the United States. As for how I wound up falling from the sky… I have no idea right now."

Wait… if she was in London, England, then why hadn't she been brought to a hospital for treatment of her injuries? They definitely had modern hospitals there. Unless they thought she hadn't wanted to go to one? Who knew?

There was also the matter of not only medicine and medical care, but also of the technology of this place (or lack thereof). There were braziers lit around the place, as well as lanterns on the walls. There were candles lit in various places, too. But there was no electricity that she could see. There were also no cellphones that she could see or hear. Her own must have gotten lost in the crash.

The clothing people wore (not that she had seen many, other than Caliban and the nuns) were strange. It was like they were from a hundred years ago, or more. Very strange.

"I feel like Dory," she said out loud without realizing it.

"Who's Dory?" Caliban asked.

"You know, the little blue fish character, from _Finding Nemo_? The one with the memory problem? She got her own movie, too. _Finding Dory_." Emily explained, thinking he'd get the reference.

He stared at her. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about. Except for the memory problem part. You feel like you can't remember things?"

"Yeah. I remember things like my name, my family, and where I'm from. But my more recent memories are fuzzy," she tried to explain.

"Such as how you got here," Caliban offered.

Emily nodded.

"Exactly," she agreed. "I have no idea what I was doing in that…" something inside her wanted to call it a ship, but didn't want to sound any crazier than she already may be. "metal thing. I have a feeling it was important, though." She frowned, wishing she could remember. The nagging feeling alone was driving her nuts.

"Time will help you remember," Caliban insisted softly. "Do not fret, Miss Emily."

"Thank you, Caliban. I appreciate you listening to me, but I'm sure you want to get back to sleep." Emily didn't want to keep him up any longer than he wanted to be. "I feel better now."

"As do I," he agreed. "But I do not need to sleep very often. Quite often I am the only other person awake at this hour, or even later, reading."

"What do you like to read?" Emily asked him, feeling a sense of excitement that they had something more in common than just being down on their luck. She smiled.

"The classics, and some contemporaries," he answered. "Poetry, mainly. Tennyson, Keats, Shakespeare, Shelley…" he motioned to the books stacked next to the cot as he spoke.

"Every read anything by Poe?" Emily found herself asking. "What about Frost? Or Dickenson?"

"I am not so familiar with American literature as I am of the English," he admitted. "But I have heard of Mr. Poe's _The Raven_ , but not of the other two authors you mentioned. Would you tell me of them?"

Emily felt her smile widen, then.

"I'm nobody. Who are you? Are you "nobody" too?" she quoted from memory as best she could. "Then there's a pair of us -don't tell! They'd banish us, you know."

"That's all I got," Emily concluded. "It's by Emily Dickenson. I had to memorize the first stanza of that poem for school, once."

"Well done!" Caliban grinned. "You have a good memory for poetry, it seems. Shall I quote something to you, now?"

"Yes, please," Emily agreed. "I'd love to hear something."

"I know of a few by Percy Shelley. Here's one of his shorter poems," he began.

"One word is too often profaned  
For me to profane it;  
One feeling too falsely disdained  
For thee to disdain it;  
One hope is too like despair  
For prudence to smother;  
And pity from thee more dear  
Than that from another," he paused his recitation, as if thinking. He soon continued with the poem's second verse:  
"I can give not what men call love;  
But wilt thou accept not  
The worship the heart lifts above  
And the heavens reject not, -  
The desire of the moth for the star,  
Of the night for the morrow,  
The devotion to something afar  
From the sphere of our sorrow?"

Emily found the poem moving and deep. Caliban had done an excellent job of not only reciting the poem, but also speaking the words with emotion. It was like he meant it, as if he related to it.

She smiled at Caliban, feeling somewhat sheepish given the much shorter poem she had told to him earlier. She wished she remembered more. She wondered, briefly, if the word the author referred to was "love". Or was it something else, since they themselves used the word later in the poem?

"That was beautiful. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream,"" she responded, albeit somewhat random. "By Poe. I always liked that one. Despite his reputation for horror, his poetry is actually very beautiful. Sad at times, but beautiful."

"I find I like that poem, too. Could you repeat it for me, please, once more?" Caliban asked.

Emily repeated the poem to him, and waited to see what he thought.

"Thank you, Miss Emily. I find there is truth in that statement. Do you?" he inquired.

"Yeah, I do. And you know what else is true? His poem about science. Want to hear it? I may not get it exactly right, but the point remains," she offered.

"I'm intrigued. Please do," Caliban answered.

Emily nodded, and she began enthusiastically. "Science! True daughter of time thou art! Thou hast stolen the elfin from the green grass, Diana from her car, and from me, the summer dream beneath the Tamarind tree."

"Fascinating," he commented a moment later. "Very different. Very true. I can sense the desire for simpler times or simple beliefs, such as those one held in childhood."

Emily found herself nodding in agreement. "It's like, despite all the good science does for us, it still steals the magic from stuff, you know?"

"Yes," Caliban concurred, then added quietly: "Frankenstein would like it, too."

Emily didn't quite catch all of his last sentence. All she heard was something about Frankenstein and liking something. Did he mean the book by Mary Shelley?

"You've read _Frankenstein_ , by Mary Shelley? Or, _A Modern Prometheus_ , as it's sometimes called?" Emily assumed.

She couldn't help but notice how her new friend froze at her words.

"No," he stated, still looking put off. "I have not."

He looked down at the ground.

"What's wrong?" Emily asked, wishing she had the strength to scoot down and touch his shoulder. "Have I upset you? Are you tired?"

"I'm fine," he insisted.

His body language, however, said differently.

"Not true," Emily challenged. "Otherwise, we'd either be discussing the story, or swapping more poetry. I'm sorry if it was something I said or did. How can I make it up to you, Caliban?"

He looked at her, then.

"I…" he stammered. "No need to apologize, Miss Emily, for it is not your fault. I just… I think I may need to rest now. You do, too," he insisted.

"Okay," Emily replied, not totally buying it, but understanding that there might be things going on in his life that he didn't want to share, either about the past or present. She wouldn't press him.

"Although," he added, more shyly than before. "I wouldn't mind hearing the tale tomorrow, perhaps, if you feel up for it, then."

Despite the oddness of his request, Emily found she didn't mind. She shifted so that she lay on her side, wincing as her leg continued to ache. She'd do just about anything for a Tylenol about then.

"I'd be happy to," she answered. She fought back a yawn. "And you're right. I think I can sleep now. Thank you for talking with me. I enjoyed it. Sleep well, Caliban."

She smiled at him, and was relieved that he smiled back at her like he had before she mentioned _Frankenstein_.

"You as well, Miss. Would you mind if I slept sitting up here?" he asked, blushing slightly. "The floor is…not good for sleeping."

"Not at all," Emily was quick to reply. "Although, given our circumstances, I understand if you want to lie down on the bed later, too."

Now it was her turn to blush. But she refused to dwell on it. It was a matter of practicality and kindness, and Emily knew Caliban would get that.

He nodded. "I do not think I will. I appreciate the offer, however. And Miss Emily," he added as she shifted once more so she could use her arm as a pillow.

"I may be gone when you wake tomorrow, but don't worry. I'll be back soon."

"That's alright. Thanks for letting me know. Good night, Caliban," she answered, her eyelids feeling heavy.

"Good night, Miss Emily," she heard Caliban answer. She felt the mattress shift as he made himself more comfortable.

 _Tomorrow_ , she thought, _if I do nothing else besides tell him that story, I will find somewhere else to sleep and heal so the poor man can have his own cot back._

It was the least she could do at this point, she figured, until both her strength and memory returned. As she drifted off, she thought of her friend, Alex, again briefly. She felt a pang of sadness as she realized she missed him. Even if she couldn't recall how she knew him, he had to be very important to her for her to feel like that.

 _Alex_ , her last thought before falling asleep echoed through her mind, _I'll see you again. Somehow. I promise._

I'm so sorry this took so long to update! I know this chapter was a lot of talk, but I wanted to show them getting to know each other better. For the record, I wrote the ending around midnight, so if something's off, lack of sleep is likely the culprit. But hey, I tried.

For the love of all that is sweet and deep-fried, please leave me a review! (Oh, and many thanks to those who have done so in the past. I hope you will continue to do so in the future.)


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own _Penny Dreadful_ or any of the characters.

Here's chapter four. In which Emily remembers.

As anxious as Caliban was to hear the story of _Frankenstein_ , he decided not to nag or push her the next day. Poor young woman had enough on her mind already.

For example, almost as soon as she had woken up that morning, she had asked him a very unusual question.

"Caliban," she'd asked him in a quiet, hesitant voice. "This is going to sound very strange, but I need to know something."

When he nodded, she continued.

"What year is it?" she asked in an even softer voice. She kept glancing at her hands in her lap, then over at him, who was sitting up next to her, and then back down to her hands.

"What year is it?" he echoed, as if he hadn't heard her right.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "What year is it?"

A strange question, indeed. But given his own background, and how long it took him to learn about the world since he'd been brought to life, he did not think it as strange as some of his own had once been.

"It's 1895. Why?" he answered.

She looked up at him, then, as if startled.

"1895? For real?" she asked, her eyes wide and her tone one of shock.

He nodded.

"What year did you think it was, or hoped it to be?" he asked gently, not wanting to sound ridiculing. He was sincere in his questions.

Her bottom lip quivered, as if she was about to speak, but kept changing her mind. She looked down at her hands again, which she was wringing anxiously.

"2016," she whispered. "The last time I checked the date, it was in the year 2016."

Now he stared at her. While he was no stranger to the impossible, as he himself could be called such, the idea of time-travel was new to him.

"You think I'm nuts, don't you?" she said, as if resigning herself to the idea. "I can't say I blame you if you do."

He exhaled slowly, and thought carefully before he answered.

"I find that, due to your strange clothes, mannerisms, and that strange metal machine you crashed in… I believe that you speak the truth. Truth, as the saying goes, is stranger than fiction."

Emily stared out into space for a minute, then nodded.

"I agree. Thank you, Caliban. I remember now, what I was doing and where I was, before I wound up here. You were right. I think I just needed to rest."

She still spoke quietly, and Caliban wondered if she needed some time alone to think. He needed to go look for another job, and would go if she needed him too, even if she didn't say it.

"And what were you doing, before the crash?" he asked.

But Emily shook her head.

"I understand," Caliban said before she could speak. "You think about it. You don't even have to answer if you don't want to. I know what it's like to have secrets, and I feel that, whatever it was, it's your decision to tell, or not to tell."

"I appreciate that. And it's not that I don't want to tell you," Emily tried to explain. "It's just complicated. If it were just me, I would. But there are other people… _involved_ , you know? It's nothing bad, though, what we were doing. It was a good thing. Difficult and dangerous, but definitely good."

He could tell she was being sincere, but her rambling told him that she needed time to collect her thoughts.

"I believe you," Caliban assured her. He stood up, then.

"I've got to go, now. I've been looking for a new job these past few days. But I'll be back later, I promise."

"Okay," Emily answered. "I guess… I'll be here. Would it be alright if I looked at some of your books, while you're gone? I don't think I can walk on my leg yet, so I don't really have much else to do."

He realized that she would likely need help getting around, even just to the facilities. But he had no way to help her presently. Until he could, letting her read some of his books to help pass the time was not an unreasonable request.

"Please do," he answered. "I don't mind."

"Thank you," Emily said. She smiled. "I'll be sure to check out Tennyson while you're gone. Give us more to talk about, poetry-wise, if you want."

Caliban saw her statement for what it was. She was asking if he wanted to keep up their rapport. It meant that she wanted to be his friend.

"I would like that," he answered. He returned her smile.

"Until later, then, Miss Emily," he said, feeling awkward as he did when he wasn't sure how to act or what to say in certain social situations. He wasn't used to having someone to come back to, after all.

Emily nodded. "See you later. Good luck."

Caliban nodded back, then turned and left. He'd recently heard they were looking for workers someplace near to the river, not too far from the clinic. It would be his first stop.

Emily's point of view:

As soon as Caliban was gone, her anxiety began to set in.

It was 1895. She was, somehow, impossibly, over one hundred and twenty years in the past.

But how had she gotten there? The last thing she remembered, before everything went to hell in a handbasket, was being on a small, two-person spacecraft. She'd been doing some scouting around where there had been reports of enemy shape-shifter activity.

Yes, she'd been in space. Yes, she'd been investigating alien activity. She was part of a group of humans who had been befriended by another, much friendlier, alien race, called the Siesiens.

She wondered if it had been some kind of attack by shape-shifters that had stranded her there, in 1895, London. All she knew was that something had hit her ship, knocked out her sensors, and sent her careening back to Earth. Sometime during the fall, she'd blacked out due to the number of G's pulling and straining her body.

That was the cause of the crash, obviously, but not the time-travel.

She'd awoken to blaring alarms, freezing water rapidly seeping into the ship, and pain. The emergency lighting worked, but not much else. By the time she'd managed to get the emergency manual eject mechanism to work (yes, they still had those, in case of crashes inside a planets' atmosphere), the water had filled nearly the whole compartment. She'd been trying to stay calm, and nearly lost it after she'd taken the last breath of air that she could before the water was above her head.

But then the eject worked. For a moment, she rejoiced inwardly. But, unbeknownst to her, during the crash one of the wings had been warped so that it bent into the ejection path. She lost most of her air screaming after her leg hit the wing just after being shot out of the ship. It was also during the time she ejected that the water outside and inside the craft had heated up to a scalding temperature. Hence her burns.

It was a miracle she hadn't lost her leg. It was also a miracle that no other part of her body had hit the wing, either, and that she was still alive.

After the momentum from ejecting ran out early (possibly due to being underwater), she managed to undo the safety belt, floundering until she figured out which way was up. Eventually, she reached the surface, and then she could breathe again.

The frigid water of the river was both her aid and hindrance. While it kept her burns from worsening, and helped keep her leg feeling somewhat numb, it made it hard for her to move the rest of her body to swim. But she kept trying.

She could see the shore, but not much beyond it, given the heavy gray mist and rain. Eventually, she managed to reach it, but not until the current had carried her downstream. Because she was so cold, she forgot, momentarily, about her injured leg. When the water gradually became shallow enough, she had, naturally, tried to stand. Big mistake. Even with the way water made one feel weightless, her leg gave out on her, and she slipped underwater once more. Realization dawned on her that her leg was in worse shape than she'd thought.

Using her one good leg, she'd kicked up from the river floor (now, thankfully, only about five feet deep) to the surface, and resorted to swim the rest of the way. Once it became too shallow to swim, anymore, however, she had to crawl.

She didn't care, as long as she could keep her head above the water. Her leg began to hurt, though, and she'd involuntarily cried out more than once as it dragged along the bottom of the shallows.

She made herself move, though. She had to get out of the water. She was freezing, hurting, utterly lost, and very afraid.

It was then she heard the tell-tale sound of people. Instinctively, she called out for help, no longer thinking as a pilot, but as a lost human being.

But no one came. The rain continued, cold and unrelenting.

She dragged herself along the gravelly shore, until she had no strength left. Everything hurt, and there were times she couldn't help but groan in pain. Still, no one responded. Eventually, she stopped, rolling onto her side in an attempt to relieve the pressure on her broken leg.

Exhausted, and the adrenaline leaving her system, she'd closed her eyes. At least she was out of the water.

But then, a few moments later (or hours, for all she knew), Caliban had shown up. She thanked God for him and his help, then and this morning. Otherwise, she likely would have died from exposure.

And the rest was history.

She must have gone into some kind of shock during and after the crash (and the ensuing struggle to reach the shore). That would explain her memory loss, as well as how it came back that morning.

This, at least, was progress.

Seeking to fend off a sense of panic (due to a question she refused to ask herself, let alone answer at that point in time), she remembered how she needed to find her own cot. Or just a space on the floor of her own, if no other cot was available.

She'd been in worse places. She couldn't think of any at the moment, though she was sure she had.

There was one other thing that she was able to remember, then, that she hadn't been able to last night. The realization brought a tiny smile to her face, and a shred of hope to her heart.

She remembered Alex.

The thought of him alone was enough to make her almost forget her broken leg. She suddenly longed to be able to get up, move around, and do what needed to be done.

She needed to get back to the river and look for her ship. She needed to know if the automated distress signal had been sent out or not. She needed her emergency supplies…

First, she needed to be able to walk again, though. Or, at least, limp without help from another person.

Only then could she worry about how to get to the bottom of the river and back again, and somehow survive.

There was one other thing she was absolutely certain of, though: she could not manage the task alone.

I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long, you guys. And I know that this chapter isn't as long as the others, but I will do my best to make the other chapters a more reasonable length. I can't give an estimate on when I will update again, but I'm sure it will happen. Eventually.

Oh, and the next chapter will definitely have more of Caliban in it than this chapter did.

Please remember to review! They motivate me to continue writing this! Let me know what you think of Emily. I promise more explanations are to come, most likely in the next chapter.


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